“AI is certainly the topic of topic of the day, but I think we are going to think of AI differently,” says incoming TD Synnex President of North America Reyna Thompson. “It’s not just that AI is emerging. It is how do you monetize AI?… We’re actually focused on how do you build a business practice around AI technologies.”

Incoming TD Synnex President of North America Reyna Thompson, a 31-year TD Synnex veteran who was most recently head of the distributor’s North America Advanced Solutions Group, said the $55 billion distribution behemoth is set to inspire partners to build AI practices.

“AI is certainly the topic of the day, but I think we are going to think of AI differently,” said Thompson, who is planning to address the AI opportunity head-on at TD Synnex’s Inspire Conference October 9- 12 in Greenville, South Carolina. “It’s not just that AI is emerging. It is how do you monetize AI?…We’re actually focused on how do you build a business practice around AI technologies.”

Thompson is taking over as North America president on December 1, replacing 40-year TD Synnex sales and distribution icon Peter Larocque, who is moving into an advisory role on November 30.

[RELATED: TD Synnex’s Incoming CEO Patrick Zammit: ‘AI Is Going To Be Very Pervasive’]

Thompson spoke about the opportunity to define the partner of the future and lead the charge in the AI era in her first interview since being named North America president.

“This is exciting because what we’ve seen is this sort of phenomenon in the last year, where partners have spent so much time honing their skills with specialization in a particular technology area,” said Thompson. “But the lines have blurred: security isn’t a silo; you can’t drive a cloud practice in a silo anymore; data and AI are not in a silo. These are integrated technologies. So we are seeing these partners expand their traditionally technology focus to include some of these other technologies. That is going to require us to support them in a different way. The good news is we absolutely have the capabilities to do that.”

TD Synnex has the tools and program to support partners to bust out of the technology silos they are in to drive AI-era solutions, said Thompson. “That is one of our key areas of focus in this next year: this emergence of this new partner type that really has a skill in one area, but now needs to scale and be skilled in other areas,” she said.

Thompson said she is excited about the “new energy and new opportunities” that come with new TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit taking the helm on September 1.

“We’ve always had a thirst to get out there first and execute on some of these new business ideas,” she said. “And we’ll continue to have that thirst and that excitement to be able to do that. Patrick brings to us that kind of entrepreneurial mindset that we’ve always had. I certainly was born with that in this organization, and I think you’re going to continue to see more of that.”

Thompson said her greatest accomplishment professionally has been working for more than three decades to grow the TD Synnex business.

“I’ve had a great privilege of working with great leaders and watching this company grow and grow and grow, most recently in the last few years, helping to shape the TD Synnex organization,” she said. “That has been my greatest accomplishment professionally: being a part of this organization and working alongside leaders like (outgoing TD Synnex North America president and 41-year TD Synnex veteran) Peter Larocque. I worked with Peter very closely for 20 years, but really in the last five years very closely to shape this organization.”

Here’s more of Thompson’s conversation with CRN below.

What do you want partners to know about you and your biggest accomplishments both professionally and personally?

How about having a career for 30 years inside the four walls of this amazing company? How many people can say that? I’ve had a great privilege of working with great leaders and watching this company grow and grow and grow, most recently in the last few years, helping to shape the TD Synnex organization. That has been my greatest accomplishment professionally: being a part of this organization and working alongside leaders like (TD Synnex North America President and 41 year TD Synnex veteran) Peter Larocque. I worked with Peter very closely for 20 years, but really in the last five years very closely to shape this organization.

Personally I am very grateful for my family. We have a very close family. My husband is 10 of 11 kids. So we have lot of grandkids, a lot of extended family. A lot of times people ask me: what do you do for fun? Well, what do I do for fun? If I’m not working I’m with my family.

Now that you own all the different lines of business in TD Synnex North America, aligning with TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit’s vision is going to be key to success. What do you see as the key to making that happen?

Right now we are in the midst of our strategic planning. We’re going to have our Inspire conference in October where we’ll debut what our strategy looks like and what we intend to focus on in the next year.

But right now what I think is what’s very important, and what I’m happy about is that as a longtimer (here at TD Synnex) I’ve been working with Peter on this transition for over a year. So the most important thing for partners to understand is there’s going to be continuity. There is not going to be any disruption. I was born and raised in this business, and it’s going to be very important that we continue to deliver the operational excellence that they’re used to.

Right now we have a year to finish. We’re going to focus on that. We’re going to focus on as little disruption as possible, and we’re going to get ready for Inspire to talk about what our plans are in the coming year.

How do you feel about the future of TD Synnex with Patrick Zammit taking over as CEO and the company ready to talk about the strategy going forward at Inspire?

I’m very excited about Inspire. I’ll tell you what it is and what it isn’t. What it is is an opportunity for us to continue focusing on our customers and our vendor partners and our co-workers, offering them the continuity that they need.

With quite a bit of disruption in the market over the last few years that continuity is going to be a big, big focus. So they’re not going to see change in the way that we deliver and the way that we support our customers.

What I am very excited about is we have new leadership. There is new energy and new opportunities. We’ve always had a great view of the market and a focus to deliver new revenue streams. And I’m really looking forward to continuing to do that with Patrick and with the rest of the TD Synnex leadership team.

So you’ll see lot of focus on maintaining our relationships and again supporting the customers with as little disruption. But we are really excited about executing on some of these new ideas that are in front of us- that partners are bringing to us every day.

We’ve done a great job of doing that in the past. We’re going to continue to do that. It’s not different because I think we’ve always captured the day. We’ve always had a thirst to get out there first and execute on some of these new business ideas. And we’ll continue to have that thirst and that excitement to be able to do that.

Patrick brings to us that kind of entrepreneurial mindset that we’ve always had. I certainly was born with that in this organization, and I think you’re going to continue to see more of that.

Coming from the Advanced Solutions Group, what do you see as the partner of the future and how TD Synnex can bring all the tools it has to enable that future?

This is exciting because what we’ve seen is this sort of phenomenon in the last year, where partners have spent so much time honing their skills with specialization in a particular technology area. But the lines have blurred: security isn’t a silo; you can’t drive a cloud practice in a silo anymore; data and AI are not in a silo. These are integrated technologies. So we are seeing these partners expand their traditionally technology focus to include some of these other technologies. That is going to require us to support them in a different way.

The good news is we absolutely have the capabilities to do that. We have the tools. We have the programs. We just need to understand who those partners are and the fact that they need to be supported in a different way. They need to be enabled in a different way. And that is one of our key areas of focus in this next year: this emergence of this new partner type that really has a skill in one area, but now needs to scale and be skilled in other areas.

Where is the biggest opportunity for partners as you look into the future?

AI is certainly the topic of topic of the day, but I think we are going to think of AI differently. It’s not just that AI is emerging. It’s how do you monetize AI? How do you build a true business practice around AI? So what you’ll hear at Inspire is not just reporting the news, so to speak, telling everybody that AI is great. We’re actually focused on how do you build a business practice around AI technologies; how do you integrate AI to deliver customer outcomes and how do you monetize that effort? That is our talk track. That is our focus related to AI. There are other very important technology segments. But right now AI is top of mind because partners are asking how to monetize it. I can’t tell you how many partner events I went to where partners said: ‘Please, please not another presentation to tell us how AI is important. This is like cloud years ago when everyone was saying: ‘Cloud is great, cloud is great’ but didn’t really discuss how to monetize cloud.

So is the difference between how TD Synnex views AI and other distributors the TD Synnex focus on practical programs and tools to monetize AI?

With AI specifically we launched Destination AI a year ago. I would say we had our sights set on how do you monetize AI quite a while ago.

Destination AI was an opportunity to build those tools, those programs, those competencies, to surround those partners who were interested in building out those practices. Now we are aligning all those tools and programs around some real, innovative vendor solutions. These are very vendor specific solutions. Our vendor partners are doing a great job developing some of those solution opportunities for AI.

So the partnership of both those solution opportunities, along with all our programs and tools and our specialized resources, are what’s going to help the partners.

How do you see the role of distribution changing in the AI era?

I think what this is going to do is highlight the fact that distribution has quite a bit of capability and specialization that partners can lean in on to develop out their (AI) practices. It’s no longer the day of just pick, pack and ship. There is real investment. There is real specialization, and there’s a real need for partners who are looking at scaling out beyond their traditional technology segments, beyond their traditional customer reach, to develop new opportunities, and they’re going to lean in on a partnership that’s going to be able to afford them all the tools and resources needed to be able to do that. I think what will absolutely become apparent is that distribution is the specialized partner in this effort.

What do you see as the key differences between you and Peter Larocque?

I can’t say enough about Peter. He has been an incredible mentor for me for years and years and years. He is incredible. He’s always on. He never stops with the ideas and never gives up. He is an incredible community leader. His investment in the community and in our charities has been something to be admired. He’s a friend and I’m honored- so honored to assume this role from Peter with the legacy that he built.